Sharp Serves as Part of AIDS Panel

By Sarah Y. KeightleyNews Editor

The head of the AIDS Research program at the National Institutes of
Health has proposed spending more money on basic science projects,
emphasizing the need for basic knowledge about the HIV virus and its effect
on the immune system.

Money currently spent on clinical trials would be shifted to fund
scientists studying basic science aspects of the disease.

Director of the NIH Office of AIDS Research William E. Paul wants to
change the focus of the government's AIDS-research program. He recently
announced that he would create a panel to evaluate the NIH's AIDS program,
according to an article in the Feb. 17 issue of The Chronicle of Higher
Education.

One of the members of this panel - made up of scientists and AIDS
experts - is Head of the Department of Biology Phillip A. Sharp. "I think
there's going to be a total review of all AIDS research, and that's
appropriate, given that Paul's just been appointed," Sharp said.

Under new legislation, the Office of AIDS Research is responsible for
creating a plan that sets the scientific priorities to be used in making
the NIH AIDS research budget, the Chronicle reported.

More than $1.3 billion was spent on the AIDS research program in 1995,
according to an article written by Paul in the Feb. 3 issue of
Science.

Sharp suspected that the review will result in "some shift in emphasis"
in federal funding of AIDS research, but he did not want to presuppose this
outcome.

"I think the issue is how many resources are used to directly support
clinical trials with drugs or other therapies" versus the support of new
knowledge about the HIV virus and immunology, Sharp said.

Most likely the data from this study will be in by summer, and the panel
will make some conclusions by the fall, Sharp said.

Some biologists at MIT are conducting research that is related to AIDS
or the HIV virus, Sharp said. This work "is more basic than it is directly
clinical," Sharp said. However, it is hard to differentiate between basic
and clinical research in biomedical science, "particularly in a field like
AIDS," he said.

Basic science key to robust therapy

Paul's article explained the need for the change in focus. "The first
decade of research on AIDS emphasized the nation's commitment to respond
promptly and vigorously," Paul wrote. Useful research has been done,
including understanding the development of the disease and creating a class
of drugs that inhibits reverse transcriptase, the enzyme that enables HIV
to proliferate.

"Nonetheless, these achievements have not provided us with the robust
therapies that had been hoped for, nor is a highly effective preventive
vaccine in sight," Paul wrote. Basic research aimed at understanding HIV's
activity and the body's response to the virus is needed right now, he
wrote.

"Simple continuation of the policies of the past is likely to bring us
only slow, fitful progress," Paul wrote.

Presently, about 23 percent of the AIDS budget at the NIH goes to
"unsolicited, investigator-initiated grants." Paul wants to increase this
to 40 percent of the budget, according to the Chronicle.

"To further the shift, Dr. Paul is expected to move as much as $10
million out of the $70 million program for clinical trials on AIDS and use
that money for basic research," enabling the office to finance 75 to 100
new investigator-initiated research grants, the Chronicle
reported.

At MIT, Professor of Biology David Baltimore PhD '61 is currently in a
collaboration to "visualize the immune cells that are killed by the [HIV]
virus in a patient," Sharp said.

Professor Emeritus of Biology Herman N. Eisen has worked with T cells
from AIDS patients, studying their deficiency in cell culture, Sharp said.
Professor of Biology Richard A. Young is trying to create a better vaccine,
Sharp said.

These projects include basic research, but they are also clinical
programs since they all consider the patient in some way, Sharp said. It is
"hard to dissect out basic and clinical research in biological
research."